How to prep your skin before makeup: the week before your event

The question I get most on the day before a wedding or a shoot is “should I be doing anything to my skin?”. The answer is yes — but less than you think, and earlier.

Makeup does not sit on skin, it sits on the condition of skin. Dry skin eats foundation in patches, very oily skin dissolves it by lunchtime, and skin irritated by a treatment two days ago turns everything I put on top of it pink. None of that gets fixed on the morning.

Seven days out: stop experimenting

This is the important part, and it is entirely about not doing things.

• No new products. No cream, serum or mask you have not used before. A reaction shows up on day two or three — which is to say, exactly on time for the occasion.
• No deep treatments. Chemical peels, microneedling, laser and strong retinoids want two weeks, not one. Skin flakes afterwards, and foundation grabs onto every flake.
• Brows and facial waxing at least three or four days ahead. Redness and small bumps settle in a day or two. They do not settle in a few hours.
• Leave your breakouts alone. A spot squeezed the day before is a wound, and a wound cannot be covered — only the inflammation around it can. Concealer over an intact spot works beautifully. Over broken skin it does not.

Three to five days out: hydrate, don’t polish

Now is the moment for the things that make skin smooth, not the ones that force it to renew.

• Drink water. Boring, and it works. The difference between hydrated and dehydrated skin is the difference between foundation settling and foundation gathering in lines.
• One gentle exfoliation, once. If acids or a mild scrub are already part of your routine, use them around four or five days before. Not the night before.
• A hydrating mask in the evening. Simple, familiar, no active ingredients.
• Your lips. This is where it goes wrong most often: dry, cracked lips hold neither a matte lipstick nor a gloss. A soft scrub two or three times across the week, balm every night.

The night before

Take your makeup off properly, wash your face, and use your usual night cream — nothing richer than normal. A very heavy cream the night before leaves the skin slippery in the morning and the makeup moves on it.

If you sleep on one side and wake up with creases and puffiness, sleep on a slightly higher pillow. It helps more than it sounds like it should.

The morning: clean, thin, dry

1. Wash your face with whatever you normally use.
2. A thin layer of moisturiser. Thin. A thick layer is why foundation pills.
3. Lip balm straight away, so it has time to absorb before we get to your lips.
4. No facial oils on the day. Oil under foundation is varnish under paint.
5. If you wear SPF, put it on and give it at least ten minutes to settle. It is both skincare and a base — it just needs the time.

And one practical thing: wear a shirt or something that buttons. There is no way to pull a t-shirt over your head after hair and makeup and not regret it.

If your skin is…

Dry

Hydration across the week matters more than anything else. Tell me beforehand — I work with a more luminous base and less powder.

Oily or combination

Do not strip your skin trying to “prepare” it. Stripped skin makes more oil, not less. Controlling the shine on the day is my job.

Sensitive or prone to redness

No treatments in the last ten days and no new products. Tell me if there is an ingredient that has irritated you before.

Breaking out

Do not attack it at the last minute. It covers — and it covers well — as long as the skin is not broken. That is the entire point of the week above.

What to tell me in advance

Allergies, recent treatments, products that have irritated you, and how you want to feel at the end of it. “Like I’m not wearing any” and “I want to be seen” are two different looks, and they are built differently from the first layer.

If you have not decided which of the two you want, the soft glam and full glam comparison is exactly that. And if you have — book a date and tell me what matters.